by Dave Williams | Oct 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Even the reddest of red states can promote safe firearm storage without stepping on the Second Amendment, officials from two red states told Georgia lawmakers this week.
Republican state Rep. Steve Eliason of Utah and Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center, testified before the Georgia Senate Safe Firearm Storage Study Committee about steps they’ve taken in their states to encourage gun owners to lock up their firearms without imposing mandates.
“Safe storage is low-hanging fruit … one of the easiest things we can do,” said Volkan Topalli, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Georgia State University, who appeared with the out-of-state witnesses at a hearing Oct. 10. “Safe storage is not opposing Second Amendment rights.”
The Georgia Senate created the study committee back in March, but the issue of safe firearms storage took on greater urgency last month when two students and two teachers were shot to death at Apalachee High School near Winder.
Another student at the school, 14-year-old Colt Gray, was arrested at the scene and charged with the murders, while his father, Colin Gray, also faces criminal charges for allegedly letting his son possess the AR-15 style rifle used in the killings.
The mass shooting at Apalachee High School was among 11 gun-related incidents that have occurred on school grounds in Georgia this year, second-most in the country, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun-violence prevention organization in the nation.
“Gun violence remains the leading cause of death for children and teens in America,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, the group’s senior director of research. “We have to do better.”
The Texas School Safety Center was established in 1999 in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Columbine High School, where two students killed 12 fellow students and a teacher and wounded 21 others in less than 20 minutes, an episode that sparked a trend of mass school shootings that continues today.
Martinez-Prather said the center’s mission is to provide research, training, and technical assistance to schools looking to create a safe and secure environment. The center reviews every emergency operations plan individual schools develop and produces educational materials on safe firearm storage for distribution to the schools at least several times a year, she said.
Since preventing school violence is not what teachers are accustomed to, the center fills that role, Martinez-Prather said.
“Educators do not get into education to be emergency managers,” she said. “School safety has always been a back-burner conversation.”
Eliason said the Utah legislature has passed a series of bills aimed at safe firearm storage with strong bipartisan majorities going back to 2013.
The Utah measures have used a variety of approaches. Under some of the bills, the state has bought and distributed trigger locks and biometric gun safes. Others have established tip lines that allow callers aware that a student may be planning a school attack to notify authorities.
“They’re preventable when communities detect early warning signs and intervene,” Eliason said.
Utah’s school safety legislation also includes a mental health component. A School Safety Crisis Line lets students who feel they may become a threat to themselves or others contact someone who can help.
“Every school shooter has some sort of mental health issue in their life,” Eliason said. “Students can talk to a licensed clinical social worker 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Another bill Utah lawmakers have passed allows people suffering mental health issues to put their name on a restricted list so they can’t buy firearms for whatever period of time they feel they need.
“Preventing access to firearms and getting mental health treatment go hand in hand,” Eliason said. “If you’re not focusing on both, you’re not getting to the root of the issue.”
Eliason said the key to Utah’s approach to safe firearm storage is that it’s voluntary. Since it doesn’t involve mandates, the state’s gun lobby has supported the bills, he said.
“They realize that working together, we can save gun owners’ lives,” he said.
Georgia Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, the study committee’s chairman, said he was impressed with the Texas firearm safety program and may propose something similar for Georgia. The panel is due to make recommendations, including any legislation it might introduce, before the General Assembly convenes for the 2025 session in January.
by Dave Williams | Oct 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections fell by 2.8% last month, resuming a downward pattern that has taken hold for much of this year, the state Department of Revenue reported Friday.
After posting a one-month gain in August compared to the same month last year, state revenues declined by $91.2 million in September compared to September 2023.
However, tax receipts were up slightly for the first three months of fiscal 2025, increasing by 0.4% compared to the same period last year.
Individual income taxes actually rose by 3.6% last month, primarily resulting from a huge 27.9% decrease in refunds issued by the revenue agency. That more than offset a slight 0.3% decrease in tax payments.
Net sales tax collections fell by 6.4% in September. Corporate income tax revenues also were down 13.1%, as refunds rose by $29.7 million compared to the same month a year ago and payments decreased by $47.2 million, or 10.9%.
Despite the sluggish revenue numbers, the General Assembly adopted a $36.1 billion budget for fiscal 2025, which began in July, with raises for teachers and state and University System of Georgia employees as well as record spending on education and mental health. The state could afford to be generous because of a healthy surplus built up during the last three years.
by Dave Williams | Oct 10, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Hurricane Helene caused at least $6.46 billion in losses to Georgia farmers, according to preliminary estimates released Thursday by the University of Georgia College of Agriculture & Environmental Science.
That represents direct crop losses, losses to businesses that support agriculture and forestry, losses to workers in those related industries, and estimated recovery and restoration costs that agricultural businesses will face.
Those losses could well go higher, as it will take months to understand the full scope of the damage.
“The future is uncertain for thousands of Georgia farmers who were devastated by Hurricane Helene,” state Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper said in Soperton Thursday during an update on agricultural damage from the storm. “We are working around the clock with state, federal, and industry leaders to deliver federal aid to Georgia farmers to help them recover and bounce back stronger than before.”
The third named storm to hit Georgia in the last 13 months rampaged through South Georgia and the Augusta region Sept. 26-27, leaving 34 dead, causing catastrophic damage to homes and businesses, and destroying crops. Helene hit as Georgia farmers already were facing economic challenges from inflation, high input costs, and depressed commodity prices.
Gov. Brian Kemp Thursday called on Congress to act quickly to appropriate federal disaster relief funds to hurting farm families, including block grants like those provided following Hurricane Michael in 2018.
In addition, more than 40 agriculture industry organizations have joined to create a hurricane relief fund. All of the money donated to the fund will go to help impacted farmers recover from Hurricane Helene. More information is available at www.supportgeorgiafarmers.org.
by Dave Williams | Oct 10, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers should enact safe firearm storage legislation to reduce an epidemic of gun violence most dramatically illustrated by last month’s school shooting in Barrow County, two parents of teens killed by guns said Thursday.
“It is a pain that never goes away,” said Julvonnia McDowell, whose14-year-old son JaJuan was shot and killed in 2016 by another teen playing with an unsecured firearm while visiting family in Savannah. “That’s why I advocate for secure storage laws. Our children deserve in a world free of gun violence.”
“We want securing your firearm to be as instinctive as securing your children in a car seat,” added Kristin Song, whose 15-year-old son Ethan was accidentally shot and killed in 2018 by an unsecured gun at a neighbor’s house in Connecticut.
His death spurred Ethan’s Law, legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate that would require gun owners to safely and securely store their firearms.
“Georgia failed those killed in the recent high-school shooting,” Song told members of a state Senate study committee. “But you have the power to change that.”
The study committee was formed after two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School near Winder were shot and killed early last month. Another student, 14-year-old Colt Gray, was charged in the murders, and his father, Colin Gray, faces charges for allegedly allowing his son to possess the weapon.
On Thursday, Song testified that 76% of school shooters used unsecured firearms they obtained at home. Most youth suicides and unintentional shootings also are carried out with unsecured firearms, she said.
Twenty-six states have child-access prevention (CAP) laws that allow prosecutors to bring charges against adults who intentionally or carelessly allow children to have unsupervised access to firearms, said Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center.
Texas lawmakers passed a bill following the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, with an education component that requires school districts to inform parents of safe storage policies.
“Schools can play an effective role in helping reduce gun violence,” she said.
Committee members acknowledged that crafting safe firearms storage legislation without curbing Second Amendment rights is a challenge.
But Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, the committee’s chairman, said it can be done.
“This is not about taking anyone’s gun,” he said. “It’s about trying to protect our kids against senseless gun violence.”
Thursday’s meeting was the last for the study committee. Jones said he expects the panel will come up with safe firearms storage legislation for the full Senate to consider during the next General Assembly session starting in January.
by Dave Williams | Oct 9, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – About 50,000 Georgia electric customers were still without power Wednesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, as yet another massive storm – Hurricane Milton – was bearing down on Florida.
Most Georgians remaining without power are in rural areas served by the state’s electric membership corporations (EMCs), Gov. Brian Kemp said late Wednesday afternoon after meeting with Chatham County emergency management officials in Savannah.
“They have a lot of devastation,” Kemp said. “[But] they’re steadily going after it.”
The governor also reported the death toll in Georgia from Helene has reached 34. The huge storm tore through South Georgia and northeast through the Augusta area Sept. 27 before moving into the Carolinas, where some of the worst damage and the most deaths occurred in western North Carolina.
Now, with Milton expected to hit Florida’s west coast Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane, many of the Floridians in a huge evacuation zone were heading north into Georgia. Kemp said hotel rooms are filling up, but rooms remained available in Albany, Columbus, Macon, and Atlanta. State parks are open to RVs and campers, he said.
With so many Floridians fleeing Milton, traffic in South Georgia has been heavy, Kemp said.
“Just about every car on I-75 north had a Florida license plate,” he said. “[But] we’ve seen that in the past and know how to deal with it.”
While Hurricane Milton is expected to move quickly through Florida’s midsection from the Gulf Coast before heading out into the Atlantic Ocean, Georgia isn’t likely to escape the storm completely. Twenty counties in the southeastern portion of the state are expected to receive two to six inches of rainfall and tropical storm winds of up to 50 miles per hour starting early Thursday.
The six counties likely to get the most rain – Camden, Glynn, McIntosh, Brantley, Charlton, and Ware – could see flash flooding, according to the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., has launched a bipartisan push for federal disaster relief to farmers affected by Hurricane Helene, working with U.S. Rep. Austin Scott, R-Tifton.
“There is the risk of not just deep but lasting damage to Georgia agriculture … if Congress fails to act swiftly,” Ossoff said.
Ossoff said estimates are that up to 35% of Georgia’s cotton crop and 10% to 30% of the state’s peanuts have been lost. At least 200 poultry houses were damaged in the storm, while up to 4 million acres of timberland and up to 50,000 acres of pecan orchards were destroyed, he said.
Ossoff said he wants Congress to act on disaster relief as soon as the dollar value of the losses has been assessed, a process that remains ongoing.
by Dave Williams | Oct 9, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Fulton County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to force Gov. Brian Kemp to schedule an administrative hearing on whether to remove three members of the State Election Board.
The ruling by Judge Ural Glanville sided with a legal opinion Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr released last month asserting that the plaintiffs in the case don’t have the legal authority to make such a demand.
State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth; Cathy Woolard, a former chair of the Fulton County Board of Registration & Elections; and Democratic Senate candidate Randall Mangham filed suit after the board’s three Republican members – Janice Johnston, Janelle King, and former state Sen. Rick Jeffares – adopted controversial changes to state election rules that, among other things, would empower local election officials to delay or refuse to certify election results and require ballots to be hand counted on Election Night.
Democrats say the chaos and uncertainty such changes could create following the Nov. 5 presidential election could lead to former President Donald Trump capturing Georgia’s 16 electoral votes even if Vice President Kamala Harris has won more of the state’s popular vote.
Republicans have denied plotting to help Trump and have defended the rules changes as a way to ensure the election is fair and accurate.
After the lawsuit was filed, Kemp asked Carr for his opinion on whether the phrase “upon charges being filed” in state law means a citizen can present information about a state board member that might constitute formal charges.
“It is my official opinion that … the phrase … does not mean that a citizen can simply submit information to the governor and trigger the hearing process contemplated,” Carr wrote in response.
On Wednesday, Islam Parkes said she was disappointed with the ruling and vowed to appeal.
“For decades, prior governors have initiated hearings based on citizen complaints,” she said. “Governor Kemp should not be allowed to make up his own rules.”
Kara Murray, a spokesperson for Carr, defended the decision.
“The plaintiffs were legally, factually and constitutionally wrong,” she said. “While others may try to use our court system to gain headlines, we will continue to follow the law in our representation.”
